Although I think Intel (TM) products are great in their functionality with a historic background; I think there is significant scope of product improvement; mostly about circuit protection; So that the board becomes safer to handle, and the longevity increases.

1. The substrate/basement (epoxy) of the board should be made much more thicker and harder.

2. Their should be a frame or backbone-like thing (either epoxy or metal) on both side and edges of the board to prevent bending/cracking of the boards,

and to divide the board into smaller slots so that the tendency of bending/cracking reduced (Just like a large paper sheet easily bends/cracks but a small slots of paper of similar sheet glued on a framework does not crack so easily).

(Here is a very rough diagram, where the green rectangle represents entire board)

3. The metal tracks (conductors) of the circuit, should be made thicker so that it gain more resistance against physical force.

4. To attach the CPU-Fan on the board; the board and the fan should contain more simple and easy mechanism of fastening (preferably Screw). The spring-like mechanisms should be avoided for CPU-fan on Motherboard.

(I understand, 2 hazard with screw, is 1. they could be easily lost, and 2. they could get loosen with time; both could be solved by simple ways. The nut/socket should be fixed at bottom at board; screws should be permanently attached to fan and could be moved only upto a certain distance back/forth, and the screws could be locked at a fixed position with transverse pins. )

It would create lesser stress on the board while assembly/repair/ fan clean-up.

5. Fans should also be made in an way so that if they catch hair/thread/such large stuffs; those debris could be easily taken out. Best if blade and its basal part could be disassembled easily by the ordinary user. Incidentally most of my computer fans catch long hairs (fallen long hairs of women) which wraps the motor and stops/slows the fans. Also the area I live is heavily polluted with immense dust sedimentation. So masses of soot and debris stops the fan each 2 or 3 month. It is not always possible to call a technician to just move the fans. Beside fans; there should be a thermoelectric cooling (Thermoelectric cooling - Wikipedia ) system so that if a fan fails the circuit will survive.

6. Besides the green-coloured power-indicator LED; there should be a bright, white LED, focused to the CPU-fan to physically monitor whether the CPU-fan inside the cabinet, running properly.

7. There should be a small LCD (calculator-like) display upon the motherboard that will display some important temperatures. There should be sound-alert (Buzzer-feedback) sensitive to overheat and wrong voltage.

The protective mechanisms against voltage fluctuations (filter circuits, fuse/circuit-breaker, VDRs etc) should be more robust; so that a failure in the SMPS/UPS does not affect the system. and there should be more well-developed alarm mechanisms.

8. In case of mishandling with BIOS set-up / boot-related error / malware activity; there should be a robust, hard-wired mechanism for recovery into initial/default set-up.

I will also add that the cost of these items is likely considered prohibitive and there is little chance (as they say, a snowballs chance in hell) that the 3rd-party board manufacturers will adopt any of them. They are looking for ways to make them cheaper, not more expensive.

Intel simply decided that they didn't need to make Desktop Boards any longer. The market was robust, with double digit numbers of ODMs and some MNCs directly designing and manufacturing their own motherboard products and delivering then to market in a timely fashion.